Calls in Cork to halt all greenway plans pending key review – amid ‘distress’ among landowners

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

A west Cork councillor has called on Cork County Council to halt all greenway developments in the county, including the controversial Cork to Kinsale route, until Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) reviews its greenway code of practice next year.

At this week’s meeting of Cork County Council Cllr John Collins put forward a motion calling for a pause on all greenway developments planned on private land “in light of serious concerns regarding adherence to the existing code.”

The Bandon councillor said the developments shouldn’t resume “until the review is completed and appropriate measures are implemented to protect the property rights, livelihood, well-being and mental health of affected landowners.”

Cllr Collins argued that the council and TII “have failed to follow the existing code of best practice. The code requires projects for greenways to prioritise state-owned land and minimise impacts on private holdings yet up to 90 per cent of the emerging preferred route [for the Cork-Kinsale greenway] lies on private property.”

He also said the required public outreach “did not happen in any meaningful or inclusive way, leaving large parts of the community, especially older residents, unaware. Most people only learned about the development after major decisions were already made, undermining transparency and trust.”

The motion was seconded by Cllr Daniel Sexton, who said he hoped common sense would prevail and the threat of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) be removed. “I do think there is a place for greenways, I'm not against them, we've said it before, but I do think we need to press reset and just wait till we get proper guidelines from above and that we try to do the right thing going forward,” he said.

Cllr Ben Dalton O’Sullivan said his area of Ballinhassig is “probably the parish which is most impacted by the Cork to Kinsale Greenway. I was out Friday evening and I called into an elderly couple on the Killeady side of Ballinhassig and there were tears in their eyes, they're really, really distressed over it and I can feel for them. I’m meeting people every day in Ballinhassig and surrounding areas, it's very, very tough on them and it's having a huge impact on them.”

The council’s response to Cllr Collins’ motion was that TII is the statutory body responsible for delivering greenways.

“To that end, Cork County Council acts as an agent of TII at a local level. The council is required to progress schemes in accordance with the TII standards and has neither the authority or the autonomy to deviate from same,” Divisional Manager Niall Healey said in a written reply.

In November TII Chief Executive Lorcan O’Connor told the Oireachtas Committee on Transport that its Code of Best Practise for Greenways will be reviewed in 2026. The Cork city to Kinsale greenway proposal has been controversial, attracting over 2,000 submissions from the public.

Speaking at this week’s council meeting, Cork County Council Chief Executive Moira Murrell stressed that the proposal is in the non-statutory phase of assessing the most appropriate route. “We're at the point of just looking to see where that route might be and what it might look like,” she said.

Ms Murrell said the public submissions are currently being assessed and “we expect in January we'll be in a position to talk to council. And in parallel to that, we've had discussions with the TII to see was there a way which might be more deliverable in relation to the route.”